thunder in the clouds

Brief

After many years there now appears to be agreement from traditional software vendors to web-based companies that we are now shifting from the desktop to the cloud. Is there truly harmony in the industry or are there still disagreements over how the cloud is delivered and utilized? This panel of cloud pioneers and experts will debate the state of cloud computing and where its future lies. Where does the cloud stand for consumers vs. the enterprise? How do mobile, social and open trends impact the cloud? And what is the future of the cloud – will one cloud win out over all others or will there be seamless data sharing across multiple clouds of a customer’s choice?

“Cathedral built out of toothpicks in your data center.”

Collection of services. Private / hybrid clouds exist as bridges from local data center to services. There must be some duplication of service. Lock-in: Public? Private? Closed? Hybrid? “You can have an app in the marketplace 2 months from now that looks great, runs great, user’s love.”

When to use clouds?

The elephant in the room: storing critical business data in a place that you didn’t have physical access without mix or sharing with competitors. “Can’t let go” cos of regulation? “Can’t store this in the cloud” == tax payer / SSN numbers out in the cloud. Then have anonymous customer id in the cloud and the “mapping” tables back in your data center.

Consumerization of IT

Cloud has been driven by the “everywhere” of consumer apps like twitter, facebook, apple. Where are the great apps? Not in the enterprise data center anymore.